Kiritimati, Part II (November 29/30 – December 30, 2005)

Wildlife Encounters

The anchorage was quite lively. For the first week we were visited by
dolphins every day; we think they were lured away after that by
the large fishing vessels. Nothing puts on a show like a spinner
dolphin: it's amazing to watch them leap out of the water, spinning
their sleek bodies and infecting us with their apparent joy.
One Sunday morning as we were finishing our cereal, a large pod of
about a hundred came near the boat. Bjarne wanted to join them
so we quickly donned our swimsuits, grabbed the masks/snorkels, and
hopped in. In the 20 minutes they played nearby we had several
chances to approach to within 10 or 15 feet, enough to get a good
underwater look. There's a whole lot more swimming around than ever
appear at one time on the surface. They often swam together in
groups of 3-6, some groups having a little dolphin with them.
Although the adults seemed uninterested in us, one of the young
ones seemed curious and started to swim toward me, until, it
appeared, its parents called it back. I was imagining what they
had said: “Don't touch that thing, you don't know where it's
been!” Chuck tells us that bottlenose dolphins are much
more curious and playful with humans. When the dolphins swam away, I
amused myself by trying to swim after them and noting how quickly
they lost me.

Dolphins and tuna often caused large schools of fish to jump
simultaneously out of the water attempting to escape becoming dinner. Out of
the “fry” pan and into the fire – they were now
exposed to the diving seabirds! We discovered that birds of
different feathers do not flock together: if a bird caught a fish,
another bird would ignore the remaining leaping appetizers and chase
the successful bird so that, as often as not, the fish was lost and
no one got to eat. Frigate birds seemed to be the worst for this
jealous behaviour. The sound of fish skipping across the surface
was one of a small concentrated rain storm briefly passing over the
water. We would hear the frequent whoosh and be amazed at the size
of the schools of these bait fish. At least some of these fish were
the skinny needle-nosed ballyhoo, which I mention just because I
think it's a great name. Entertainment was also provided by larger
fish, jumping and splashing loudly. One night we were happily
munching popcorn and watching a movie when we heard some loud
thumping. What the heck!? On the deck was a large flying fish
flopping around; no one wanted to deal with fish guts right then
so we tossed it back. We have often seen these fish skimming across
the wave tops for remarkable distances (maybe 100 m); at this
anchorage we got a close look at their wings in the water, spread out like
translucent fans as they hovered just below the surface in the bright
light off Chuck's boat. We were also introduced to milk fish. When
these four-foot-long fish with large dorsal fins showed up one morning I
initially thought they were small sharks. Closer inspection showed
some differences, one being that they swam around with their mouths
wide open, scooping up as much plankton as they could. Your
average self-respecting shark doesn't eat plankton - those in
certain animated films being the exception.

Fish was on the menu more often, mostly thanks to Chuck. Aside from
feeding us from his catches, he invited us to join him in fishing off
his boat after sunset. The fish were attracted to a bright light
shining into the water. He used several hooks spaced along one
line, which he would quickly lower to the bottom, slowly bring to the
surface and then drop again (jigging). Bjarne caught some
Golden Trevally this way.

On some evenings a large turtle swam near Freya. These
fascinating creatures are quite shy and it is hard to get more than a
brief tantalizing look at them. One day we were taking a bath in the
water when our friend arrived, so we swam within about 15 feet of it.
Neat! We weren't able to see it well though, as the water was quite
churned up from the swell. When our visitor declined any soap or
shampoo, Bjarne regretted not having any Turtle Wax to offer.
We did get a better look at a couple of large turtles when we were
diving – they look so ungainly yet move with grace and, at
times, remarkable speed.

Once
the clarity improved, we spent more time in the water. The coral at
the anchorage is not very exciting but we saw some neat fish. Puffer
fish were fairly common here, and we saw a type we hadn't yet
encountered in real life, the porcupine fish. The chubby
cheeks and big eyes make this shy fish quite cute. There were a lot
of flounders as well. These pancakes with eyeballs can flee
incredibly fast when threatened, but otherwise glide gently along the
sea bottom, propelling themselves with rippling edges. We watched
with fascination as one moved over the white sand and then onto some
dark brown and green coral, changing colours dramatically to blend
in well with the background. Just for some variety we went for a
night snorkel with some folks who were doing a SCUBA dive off the
pier. They had set up powerful lights to shine down from the 60 foot
wharf which attracted two groups of fish – long skinny ones
(ballyhoo) that stayed near the surface and round ones with long
split tails that swam about a metre below. The lights attracted
more fishers as well and we had to make sure we avoided their
many hooks. A few days later, looking down from the same pier we had
a great view of a young Manta ray, doing graceful somersaults
just below the surface. The two dives we had were quite enjoyable
except for the unfortunate quality of the bottled air: early into
the dive we experienced scratchy throats and by the second dive, we
were coughing a lot in a most distracting manner. Turned out the filters
on the air compressor were overdue for a change.
It was good to be under the water because
it was quite windy and cool on the surface, especially when the boat
moved between dive sites. There was lots of variety of coral and
other sea life, including things we hadn't seen before such as black
lionfish (aka turkey fish – hmm, Christmas dinner?) and huge
Napoleon fish (aka humphead wrasse). One of these wide Napoleon fish
was as long as me! We also saw an angry octopus, sending out billows
of ink at the diver who was holding it.

The
water wasn't always clear and we weren't well protected from swell,
but we enjoyed many things about this anchorage: watching and
listening to the fish jump; hearing bits of songs drift across from
the women on Fanning Island Trader;
observing the boobies, frigate birds, and white-tailed tropic birds
soaring, hunting and squabbling; listening to the surf roll onto the
beach; receiving unexpected dolphin and turtle visitors; and lounging
in the cockpit while the sun sank into the ocean, wondering if we'd
see the green flash.

Wildlife on Freya

At times we find unwelcome passengers on Freya.
We've found bugs in our rice, oats and flour. Although we look at
the packages in the store, the little critters are sometimes well
hidden until we pull the sealed package out a month later only to
find parts wriggling around. Some of the stuff is salvageable
by baking it to kill the interlopers, but one has to set aside
western squeamishness and not think about your oats having dead
bodies in it. One day we had a bumper crop of discoveries. First, I
found that we had had unauthorized salt water entry, which had made
the crossword puzzle book I was seeking thoroughly soggy with a nice
crop of mildew. In cleaning the compartment out, in addition to
other rotting items, Bjarne discovered a forgotten package of cumin
seeds full of small beetle-like insects, and other tiny bugs
munching holes into a small piece of Tongan tapa cloth.

Much
lower on the “eewwww-factor” are the hitch-hiking
gooseneck barnacles, weeny crabs, and slimy green and black stuff
that grows on the hull. No problem really, and it can be a good
workout to clean this stuff off. On our last night at Kiritimati, I
found the cutest octopus, the body no more than a centimetre
long, living in the seaweed that adhered to the bottom rung of our
swim ladder. The small critter clung tenaciously to Bjarne's thumb
when we tried to evict it, each little tentacle suctioning on for
dear life.

Christmas Festivities

While we lazed around our boat, doing the odd
chore here and there, we did not miss the pre-Christmas rush that we
assumed was happening back home. However, the conversational
entertainment that began with “I wonder what (insert
name of relative or friend here) is doing right now”
came up more often as we drew nearer to December 25th.
Some of the answers included speculation about what they were eating
as we envisioned the Christmas parties we were missing. Our
preparations were pretty minimal but we did make our traditional
fudge and some shortbread cookies. We thought we could save a
pineapple top for a tree, but it was pretty scraggly by Christmas day
so we just hung up our little ornaments around Freya's cabin.
I also had some fun making a couple of batches ginger beer. It has
to sit for at least a day before being bottled and then is supposed
to sit for another few days to get fizzy. For the second batch I
think we had too much sugar as the plastic bottles started to
distend, and when I opened one too quickly we had ginger beer all
over me and the ceiling. Still, it was a nice change from
powdered juice.

On
Christmas Eve day we went into town with Bill, from Seafire,
the latest addition to the Kiritmati Island Fleet. Other than
showing him around, our big task was picking up our “turkey”
from Kim, the dive operator. Although he has a variety of businesses
he's involved in, poultry distribution is not usually one of them.
He just kindly let us use his freezer to store a box of chicken we'd bought
the previous week, and even gave us some ice
cream when we stopped by. Clearly he rates high in our books! We
left him with a bit of thank-you fudge as we departed with our box of
chicken thighs. We then joined Bill, Karen, their 2 kids Naomi and
Jackson, and the Fanning Island Trader gang for chocolate
birthday cake; Bill had aged a whole year during the last passage!

December 25. The approaching dawn found us paddling over to Fanning
Island Trader where we stealthily climbed aboard to deliver a few
small parcels; Santa had requested our assistance when the
reindeer became overheated in the tropical climate. The sun was
barely up so back to sleep we went, getting our day off to a
leisurely start. A pile of gooey green stuff (a result of
accumulated spills) in the bottom of one of our baskets led to a busy
morning of cleaning: while the basket was out of the cupboard, a
cockroach scurried across the shelf, so I pulled everything
out and cleaned the whole compartment. I never did find the little
beast but we sprayed the cupboard walls liberally. Bjarne dressed Freya
up by hoisting all of her flags up. Just before noon,
we sat down and both had a cup of “Christmas
Morning Tea” which doesn't have anything particularly
Christmasy about it but is a nice tea nonetheless. Neither of us had
been organized enough at previous islands to get Christmas presents
for the other (which are hard to hide on the boat anyway), but I made
Bjarne a card based on one of our favourite boat games (Boggle), and
during the day he carved me a beautiful dolphin out of coconut shell,
which will be a perfect tree ornament to remind us of this unusual
Christmas.

Our
plan to snorkel was thwarted by the murky water, so Freya
got her bottom scraped instead: everybody needs a bath on Christmas
day. Not to be outdone by the clean and dressed up Freya, we
donned festively flowered outfits and retired to the cockpit to
watch the sunset. As usual whenever the sky was clear, we waited
hopefully for the elusive Green Flash, but tonight was
different: we actually saw it! We then settled down to our
not-quite-usual but pretty-darned-good Christmas dinner, followed by
traditional Danish rice pudding (risengrød) made with a tasty but very runny
edible oil product (not a lot of whipping cream around here) and
topped with strawberry jam. We made the most of our tropical
Christmas by treating ourselves to an after dinner rum
concoction, complete with umbrellas (found when cleaning out the
cupboard), and reminding ourselves what the weather was like back
home. Our thoughts and talk once again strayed to everyone back
home, and to all our cruising friends who are scattered all over the
world. Later we joined the Seafire folks on Fanning Island
Trader for the relaxed hanging
around that the Trinidadians call limin', and listened to Christmas
music, including an old song called Christmas on Christmas
Island.

Dance Competition.

Christmas Day
seemed very similar to every other day on this island. The church
service, we were told, was the same and families don't gather for
any celebrations. However, on the days following, the Catholics and
the Protestants each held a dance competition. The Catholics
were reputed to be the better dancers
so that is the one we went to. About an hour after the supposed
start time we arrived at the large maneaba,
a community meeting place with a metal roof over the concrete floor
and no walls; of course it hadn't started yet. Kids began
following us around and once I stopped to interact with them
we were swarmed. We had fun playing hand games, and took a
few photos until some parents came around told them to stop bugging
the I-Matang. A man whom we called “The Enforcer”
directed us to sit with the judges, which gave us a good view but
removed our option of leaving early. The Enforcer, employing his coconut
frond switch as needed, made announcements between dances, and kept the
floor clear of encroaching spectators, escaping kids and stray dogs.
Sitting with the judges apparently brought responsibility, and so we
too provided learned opinion about the quality of dancing. Our
military experience and hours of drill practice did allow us to
evaluate how well they moved together, but we may have missed some of
the finer stylistic points. One of the judging perqs was a lunch of
sandwiches and coffee with sweetened condensed milk in it (the island
had a good supply of this milk, but not that much regular milk).

The
competition was between three villages, with each large group sitting
in its own area clad in matching lavalava (wraparound skirts
worn throughout the tropics). Judges from each village, as evidenced
from their lavalava,
were equally represented on the panel. Most of the village group
provided the music for the 5 or so dancers by singing, clapping, and
drumming on what looked like a big bookcase lying face down, with
holes on the sides. There were five sets of dances, with
different costumes for each one. We found it was easiest to
judge the last dance of a set because by then we had an idea of what
the dance was supposed to look like. The backup groups were loud and
enthusiastic, but the dancers usually maintained serious expressions,
unless something went wrong, and then they smiled. Most of the
costumes included sashes, glitter on the skin, and flowers on
forearms and heads. The first dance consisted mainly of graceful arm
movements by the standing women. For the 2nd dance, the
women wore stiff skirts made out of grass or pandanas, which greatly
accentuated any hip movement. This was a more lively dance with
lots of fast hip action, but none of the sensual swaying that
Tahiti is famous for. On the 3rd round, the dancers sat
with mats over their legs (Bjarne called it lap dancing but I pointed
out that was something else entirely) and moved their upper bodies.
Two of the villages had men and women in this line up, instead of
only women, which the judge beside me did not approve of. For number
4, the dancers were back to standing, but this time the backup
singers lined up nicely and joined in by clapping and moving together
as well. The skirts were made of old video tape cut into 100s of strips.
The 5th dance was a lively one with a lot of precise
movements, done by men and boys wearing stiff woven “mats”
wrapped around their waists.

Before
a dance started, audience members would walk up and spritz the
dancers with perfume, aiming at about their underarms, and would put
baby powder down their backs or on the tops of their feet. We
judges all got squirted too and at the conclusion of the competition
we all got talc put down our backs. During the dancing, one woman
had a seizure of some sort, but based on what we've read this is not
uncommon and is about being overcome by either the excitement or the
dancing spirits. A couple of people rushed in and carried the
collapsed woman off the floor, where a crowd of people gathered
around. A younger woman, wailing loudly and waving her arms around,
followed behind as the fallen woman was transported. The rest of the
performers kept dancing, which is just like when someone passes out
on the parade square, except for the wailing person.

Once
the winning village was announced and the nice speeches done, that
group gathered themselves up and sang a victory song. The actions of
both the winning group, and the audience members who ran into what
soon became a melee, got wilder and more bawdy as they went
along. Men ran in and picked up screeching women, threw them over
their shoulders and ran away, sometimes with another woman chasing
them to rescue her friend. Everyone laughed at these antics
including the women who were carried away. Some people ran in with
frying pans and were playfully hitting people. Cooking implements
were in abundant supply because some families were living around the
edges of the maneaba. When a large bucket of water was tossed onto
the victors, people began rolling around in the water, especially
some of the really large folks, or dragging others into the water.
Excitement was further heightened when a bottle of baby powder was
thrown on the floor – the children gleefully ran in to
slide in the powder, just like kids skidding on an ice patch.
Soon there were kids running around with white powder smeared all
over their faces. Basically, there was lots of clowning around and
we wondered if it was the job of the winners to make everyone else
laugh. It seemed like a good idea to leave before anyone got any
ideas about entertaining things to do with the I-Matang
The half-hour walk back felt good after sitting cross- legged
on the floor for 5 hours.

After
one month at Kiritimati, it was time to leave. On the 29th
of December we did most of the final tasks (get diesel, go to the
Internet, see Immigration, pay the harbour and Customs fees, top up
the water, eat one more cone of ice cream...), but put the final
stowing and preparations for sea on hold so we could join Seafire
for dinner. We enjoyed the evening but were tired when we returned
to Freya, so only did
a few tasks before calling it a night. Facing the remaining tasks
seemed easier in the early morning light. We headed out on December
30th at 0630h, just after sunrise. Our departure time was
an hour and a half earlier than it was supposed to be. When checking out
with the Customs officer the previous afternoon we had been quoted a $20
customs fee but when we said we were leaving at 0600h he told us the fee
was $25. I then asked what time we had to leave to keep it at $20 and he
wrote down 0800h on our form, which is when they open. The absurdity of this
overtime charge is that, once we checked out that afternoon (during
working hours), we had no need to have any further contact with them,
working hours or not. We saw this warped application of overtime
fees in Tonga and Fiji as well, where if you arrived on a Saturday
you were charged extra, even if you stayed on your boat and didn't
see the Customs officers until Monday. Of course, being closed, no one
noticed our early departure...forgiveness is easier to ask for than
permission. As we motored offshore to set sail for Tabuaeran Island a dolphin came by briefly as if to
say farewell.